Survive the training. Bind a demon. Claim the power.
La’an Dar has been exiled to the Azaronhai, an austere, isolated military academy where novices learn to enter the demon realm, hunt and trap a demon, and bind it to their sword with their blood. Success means becoming Djairon – the invincible weapons of the Azartan empire. Failure means death.
La'an searches for friends and allies, but his roommate Tizera, whose rebel family were slaughtered by imperial soldiers, despises him as an entitled noble, the embodiment of everything Tizera loathes. But the academy’s perilous training forces them together and soon hatred ignites into consuming desire. La’an’s feelings overwhelm him fast, but Tizera has no idea he's hiding a dangerous secret. With La'an's lies and Tizera's volatile grief, trust is nearly impossible. While their bond deepens, La’an is stalked through the academy’s shadowed halls by the Ragged King, a creature that seems able to break every rule he’s been taught about demons, something old and powerful that hates him for reasons he must understand before it’s too late.
To survive, La’an must decide: will he betray his empire, or will he betray his heart?
Before King Za’ar conquered the great desert, before Emperor H’fir founded his academy of demonic magic, before a son of conquest fell in love with the son of rebellion, one woman’s bad decision sealed the fate of an empire.
Darai Dar lives between two worlds, raised in wealth and opulence but never forgetting her roots. While caring for her grandmother in the slums she’s been explicitly forbidden from visiting, she meets Tar – handsome, simple and intoxicating. Her father has other plans for her and lets her know that she’s been betrothed to a great lord, her freedom soon to be extinguished forever.
Darai has a choice to make. She chooses passion, and before long, blood will be spilled on the desert sand, and events will be put in motion that will see the downfall of an empire that has yet to even rise.
Title reveal: as soon as I bloody think of one
Ari Keren grew up splitting his time between the UK and the Middle East, with themes of identity, belonging and conflict frequently appearing in his writing. Forever the contrarian, while an undergraduate science student he busied himself writing plays and poetry, and when he then studied for a masters degree in creative writing he focused on science writing. He has had three different legal names. His plays have been performed in theatres across London, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and sons.
